


Hold me down, I'm so tired now

by estherlyon



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Developing Relationship, Except there's a plot in there obvs, F/M, Naps Without Plot, They're just tired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-11 23:26:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15326730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estherlyon/pseuds/estherlyon
Summary: Jyn and Cassian take naps through the Galactic Civil War.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was how I coped with the end of a pretty grueling semester. Thanks to those who cheered me along on tumblr and the discord chat. 
> 
> Title is from "Sky Full of Song" by Florence + the Machine

I. 

 

As it was wont to, in the late afternoon the sky over the Massassi great temple darkened and rain crashed down loudly, settling in a comforting rhythm that Cassian felt more or less was incorporated in his internal clock. Something far better than the painkillers that numbed his broken body wrapped itself around his bones and lulled him into a sense of calmness, though not into sleep. On very hot days, it rained on Yavin IV like this from one to five hours straight, the sound of the water clattering onto earth, durasteel and stone so deafening at times, talking was nearly impossible and when it happened late at night, sleep eluded a lot of people. He took comfort in the noise. It silenced a lot of his ghosts.

On the bed next to his, Jyn had been reading from a datapad, brows scrunched in a little frown too endearing for words. He knew he didn’t look much different: tiredness and pain lined her eyes and the edges of her mouth, and seeped away the color of her cheeks. Like him, she was also stubborn, also taken to fighting the drugs that should have put them both to sleep. Like him, she was probably also afraid of what she would see if she closed her eyes.

He cleared his throat to speak, knowing it would take some effort to talk over the loud rainfall, but she turned in his direction before he could even open his mouth, eyebrows raised.

It figured, he thought.

He shook his head, fighting a smile, but said anyway, “you should sleep.”

The matter of fact look her eyes turned on him was exactly what he had been expecting deep down, so he painfully scooted sideways in his rather wide medbay bed, “do you feel like you can come here?”

Her green eyes, so green under the weird lighting of the medbay, looked blankly at him for a second. Then she painstakingly moved forward, sitting up and closing her eyes as she maneuvered her legs onto the floor. Her injuries weren’t as bad as his – her muscles were battered and bruised, she had cracked a rib at some point and her ankle had torn ligaments - and this was only reason he was suggesting this. She limped over to his bed and his senses were overcome with the smell of bacta and disinfectant but the whiff he caught of her hair was hers and his brain nearly shorted out at such closeness, the first since they had sat on that strip of sand and waited for the light to engulf them.

She settled oddly next to him, her legs – her foot in a splint –, lying awkwardly next to his, much shorter of course and probably not feeling like they were dead weight like he did his. She looked at him, once more without saying anything, but a question in her eyes nonetheless.

He lifted his arm – this wasn’t the side where he had been shot, so it didn’t actually hurt – and she wordlessly moved to fit under it, her own arm snaking carefully over his abdomen and stopping just short of touching the bandages on his side.

“Good?” Jyn asked in a whisper and when he looked down at her, he could see something tinged pink over her cheekbones and in the hollows of her ears.

“Yes,” he rasped, because now they were close enough the sound of the rain wasn’t enough to engulf their words.

He fumbled for the small remote with which he could change the settings in the bed and leaned it backwards a bit, so they were lying down, but not in anyway that would have the fluid he knew was still in his lungs choke him.

Cassian turned his head over hers, his chapped lips just short of touching her hairline, feeling his cold chin against the skin of her forehead. The sound of the rain was relentless outside, the warmth Jyn brought into the bed more comforting than any blanket. He felt his eyes drooping shut. He opened them and turned his head to look at her. Her eyes were closed, too.

“Sleep,” he muttered.

“You, too,” she sighed back.

They did.

 

~*~

II.

 

Jyn stepped off the ‘fresher feeling slightly relieved. She felt clean for the first time after three whole days and she was wearing fresh underwear under the clothes she just put through the sonic. If there was any reason she regretted not joining the Alliance sooner it was this.

As the particular thought - the relief of feeling fresh and clean synthcotton against her skin – intruded her mind, she caught sight of another reason behind her staying with the Rebellion, slumped over the bench in the main hold of the freighter Bodhi had picked them up with, which was hurtling through a hyperspace lane and getting them the hell away from the Albarrio sector as fast as possible. He was buried under his parka like it was a blanket, curled in a way that was probably wreaking havoc on his back. She sat down next to him in what little space there was left. Like her, he slept lightly and when startled, would wake up with a blaster in his hand. And Cassian had very good aim, one that had admittedly saved her life more than once.

“Cassian,” she whispered softly, running a careful hand over the furred edge of the heavy coat.

His eyes opened, sharp as always, but he moved his mouth slowly, getting rid of the dryness, the only tell that he was actually deep asleep and one she knew he allowed because she was the one waking him up.

“What?” he grunted, moving a bit in his seat and not disguising his discomfort.

“You’re lying there all crooked,” she scrunched up her nose to keep how worried she actually was at bay.

He sat up, more or less, and shoved the parka down. He had used the ‘fresher already, as a trade-off for her putting a bacta patch on the blaster wound that had glanced off her right arm. His hair was falling over his eyes, mussed, and she had to steel herself not to reach out and run her fingers through it.

“Don’t you want to lie down in one of the cabins?” she asked instead.

He swallowed, ran a hand over his face, “I have to write my report.”

She rolled her eyes, “you can do that tomorrow. You can’t be comfortable here.”

“Bodhi might need me,” he argued.

Stubborn, stubborn man.

“All right,” she said, resolutely, “we’ll stay here, then.”

Without waiting for his response, she marched off in the direction of the crew quarters, opened the door to the first one and grabbed what she could in the way of pillows and blankets. When she got back to the main hold, he was leaning back in the bench, his eyes nodding off even as he had a datapad in front of him. She unceremoniously plucked it out of his hands.

“I was reading that,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, I can see that. Get up.”

“Jyn.”

She glared at him hard enough that he finally acquiesced. She sat down with a pillow on her back, perched her legs on a small crate that was lingering nearby that she magnetized to the ship’s floor, and put a pillow on her lap.

“Come on,” she said, patting the pillow.

It was really telling of how tired he was that he silently did as he was told, grunting when he bent his legs in a ninety degree position on the bench, so his back was elongated and comfortable.

“Is your arm all right?” he asked, as she covered him up with the blanket.

“It’s fine,” she said and finally allowed herself to wind her fingers through his hair. She had no choice, it was right there on her lap.

He reached up and grabbed her free arm, bringing it close to his chest and she swore the gesture didn’t overwhelm her.

“Just a quick nap,” he mumbled, seemingly already out of it.

“Sure,” Jyn replied, feeling the day’s exhaustion finally catch up to her, “just a quick a nap.”

 

~*~

 

III.

 

She jolted awake with a scream lodged in her throat but seconds later realized that the noise she heard was her alarm. She was fine. Cassian was fine. They were aboard Home One, in his officer’s cabin, which was small, but far better than the barracks where she belonged. Normally she supposed her being there would be frowned upon, but they were, well, them, and after the Death Star no one seemed to question any weird behavior on the survivors’ part if it didn’t mean any harm (to others or themselves).

She felt his hand on her arm, sticking from under the soft plush blankets – she had brought hers over months ago – and she eased back onto the mattress. Jyn turned her face to look at him and saw that he still had his eyes closed, eyelashes shadowing his cheeks, hair all askew.

“You were told to rest,” he still didn’t open his eyes.

He was right. She had come in the night before, battered and bruised from a mission with the Pathfinders, limping on her bad ankle and with a pain on her knee that felt like it was going to shatter the bone from the inside. She had also cried on the way back. A lot. Their extraction unit had taken too many losses this time, enough to have her remembering other men and women whom she had survived in one particular mission.

Cassian had rushed from Intel onto the hangar with wide eyes that turned wider when they were alone in his quarters and he saw the purple and swelling where her tendons had been ripped apart for a second time. He had fussed. She had fallen asleep grumbling about it.

“Why aren’t you up already?” normally he would be. He was insufferable like that.

“Draven gave me the morning off,” he was silent for a beat and then it came out, a quiet admission, “apparently I was making a nuisance of myself when I heard what had- happened.”

Dameron had told her back on the shuttle that his communication line with whoever it was in Intelligence that was monitoring the op had broken pretty much right from the second they had fallen into the Imperial ambush.

She could only imagine what Cassian had gone through. He probably hadn’t slept, which explained the fact that he still had his eyes closed.

Something that was still foreign to Jyn swelled around her heart and she reached out a hand, curled the stubborn wisp of hair that was over his face back and around his ear. She laid down closer to him, eye-level to him, and she caught the shade of a smile on his lips when he sensed her movement. He felt warm and soft, so different from the rough fatigues, the calloused fingers and the determined set of his mouth. She was already acquainted with this softness, of course, but it was something so private and rare she still marveled at it.

It reminded her of his eyes in a turbolift and of a beach singed with blaster fire.

He reached out, pulled her closer, like he had on that occasion, when they thought they were going to die.

“You want to stay in bed?” she asked, voice low as if it would somehow disturb their little cocoon of warmth and quiet.

Before he answered, though, she reached forward, drew his body flush to hers and pressed herself against his chest, her head fitting perfectly under his chin. He sneaked a hand under her clothes, warm and grounding.

Cassian never answered her question. When he had her squeezed in his arms to his taste, Jyn almost immediately heard his breath evening out in sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

IV

 

“All right, Andor. Take a break.”

The older general’s hand was hefty on Cassian’s shoulder even over his parka, his voice carrying loud enough in the command room so he would be heard over the earphones. Since being pulled from the field and promoted to major, Cassian had relearned to acknowledge his limits. An entire night spent helping monitor transmissions across the Galaxy for the signs that the Empire was setting probes loose in the Outer Rim in a search for them was bound to take its toll.

“I’ll be back at 1300.”

“An hour later will be fine,” said Draven over a cup of caff.

Cassian nodded and walked out of the room. He marched into Hoth’s icy tunnels, where most people going past him were rendered unrecognizable under scarves, hoods and heavy jackets and took a detour when he saw that Princess Leia and Han Solo were having another shouting match in one particular corridor. He ended up taking the long way to his quarters. Well, his and Jyn’s. 

He had supposed that they would be cold and empty by this point, if what he knew of Jyn’s schedule was anything to go by. However, when he opened the door that was not what greeted him.

His partner – he thought the term girlfriend to be somewhat weird and juvenile – was hunkered under a pile of comforters. The only thing he could see of her was a shock of brown hair still in a bun, at this point worn higher because it was longer than it had been when they had first met.

“Jyn?”

“Hi,” came the muffled reply.

“I thought you’d be up.”

“Leia had me going over evac plans until 0500 in the morning,” she grunted, “I was trying to get some sleep before going back to it.”

What a happy coincidence. Huh.

Small hands appeared over the edges of the comforters and a pair of green eyes shone dark in the dim daylight of the cabin.

“Take off that stupid coat and come here.”

He nodded a bit dumbly, which could be ascribed to sleep deprivation. He placed his blue parka on the pegs they had for their coats next to the door and toed off his heavy boots. His belt was next, as were his impermeable fatigues. Before he felt the bite of the chill in his underclothes, he slipped under the covers next to Jyn, who was… well, naked.

“Are you crazy?” he hissed, afraid to touch her with his cold hands.

She grabbed them and pressed them against her warm skin.

Oh.

“I took a shower,” she smiled, something he had to practically duck his entire head under the comforters to see, “and I thought – since I knew Draven would banish you from the room sometime soon-“

“I thought you said you wanted to sleep?” he asked with a huff of laughter.

“Yes, but, well…,” he felt her fingers touch his abdomen, just lingeringly, down and down until they reached the hem of his thermal pants.

And before she could finish the sentence, she yawned.

He reached out under the covers, grabbed her close to him, the affection he felt threatening to burst in his chest.

“Sleep first,” he mumbled, dropping a kiss on the side of her neck, he still cold nose making her shiver.

“Sounds good,” she replied softly, burrowing into him, warm and soft, even where she was scarred and muscled.

Smiling slightly, Cassian let himself be dragged under a cloud of standard soap, comforters and Jyn.

 

~*~ 

V

 

As soon as they made it into hyperspace, silence descended onto the transport’s bridge and then it was only a matter of assessing their situation and checking the comm channels they had established a few standard months before, in the case of an evacuation. Draven had dismissed his second-in-command a few minutes before, practically ordering the younger man to go and see medical. They had been the last ones out, taking with them some of the ground troops before they were left stranded on that ice ball of a planet. Draven hadn’t immediately noticed it – blame it on the fact that they were taking hits left and right before they hit atmo and continued to do so afterwards – but Andor had been holding himself funny and in a moment when he had supposed Draven wasn’t watching (another sign that the major was out of it, because he was never that sloppy), he had one-handedly zipped down his parka. The general had spied blood; his stubborn protégé had obviously not said a word about it.

Therefore, as the comforting splashes of stars filled their viewports, he walked off in search of his best agent. People were finally settling down for their journey, although Draven still could hear loud weeping and some of the grunts of the wounded on the way to get medical assistance, mixed with countless languages, Human or otherwise, which spoke of the amount of people they had crammed into that last transport.

Andor was nowhere near where they had set up an improvised medbay, however.

Draven felt like sometimes he could kill the younger man, if only he wasn’t as willing to get the job done himself.

He unthinkingly – as unthinkingly as he could manage, of course – roamed the ship, looking at sentients settling in cabins and berths, watching for a few seconds as a group of them took supplies and utensils out of crates in order to set up the kitchen that would feed them for the next few weeks. He must have walked for about half an hour, talking to the soldiers that had been assigned to coordinate the evacuation effort, checking his comm compulsively, because no matter how patient he could be –and being patient was something he was very good at – this mad dash from Hoth had scattered their leadership in a way that hadn’t happened in years.

Draven had to acknowledge that the Empire was changing the tide of war back in their favor. It hurt, losing the small leverage they had gained with the destruction of the Death Star.

It was in the last section of the ship, in a crew lounge toward the entrance of the cargo bay, that he found them. He would have recognized Cassian’s blue parka anywhere except this time he wasn’t wearing it. It was draped over him as he slept against Erso’s side, both nestled on the floor. The young woman – with a bruise across her cheekbone that would turn a deeper purple before it started to fade – opened her eyes from under a ratty old blanket to look at him as he approached. Andor didn’t budge; the absence of any tightness around his mouth suggested how, although it could also be nailed down to Erso’s mere presence.

“With all due respect, sir,” she whispered, “if you wake him up I might have no choice but to shoot you.”

Draven smiled because he knew that deep down she was aware that it was worry that had brought him over and not the need to demand anything from her- boyfriend? “Boyfriend” sounded like one of those things his cousins on Pendarr III had talked about before the Clone Wars ripped him from the comfort of family and home. It had an innocence that didn’t match the bruise on Erso’s cheek or the bandages he hoped were under Andor’s stained uniform. It had been the same thing he had felt when thinking of-

He mentally stopped himself. Draven had been as young as them when he had joined the Alliance, and he hoped – he fervently did – that they didn’t have to be doing this for as long as he had.

So he shook his head, let something in his general demeanor show Jyn Erso he had “come in peace”. He leaned over her side, the empty one.

“What happened to him? I saw he was bleeding, but he wasn’t without his jacket long.”

“Compound fracture on his clavicle,” Jyn whispered and then shook her head, a bit exasperated, “he came down to find me and almost passed out. He had no choice but to- He should be fine.”

Draven’s lips tightened. He put a hand on Jyn’s shoulders, because he knew these two were too much alike for their own good, “you all right, lieutenant?”

She nodded, lips tight, not saying it wasn’t anything she wasn’t used to.

“You two have officers’ quarters assigned to you,” he said, “you don’t need to be lying around like this.”

“We wanted to wait,” she said, “see if there was room for everyone.”

Obviously.

“Also,” Erso cleared her throat, to ensure she could maintain her voice low and still be heard, “he was really out of it - from the meds. The noise and-“

“Sure,” Draven understood and made sure she didn’t strain herself, emotionally if not physically, “just- there’s no need for you to be uncomfortable.”

“He’s learning it,” she said, something sweet in the corner of her eyes, “we both are.”

Draven nodded and left the couple alone, the heart a lot of people didn’t think he had just a little lighter in his chest.

 

~*~ 

 

VI

 

Cassian dropped across from her at the table she was working on in the mess hall on Home One, hands clasping a cup of caf like it was a lifeline. His eyes were more sunken than usual and when he ascertained they were alone – it was, after all, 0400 in the ship’s cycle and there was hardly any food available –, he folded his arms on the duraplast in front of him and rested his head on them.

“That bad?” Jyn asked, eyes returning to her datapad, where she was plotting courses into Hutt Space, a plan B in case Calrissian didn’t find Solo in Jabba’s usual haunts.

He lifted his head, but kept his chin propped on the crook of his elbow, looking up at her, “we’re getting somewhere, but it’s-“

Cassian didn’t finish the sentence. Only grunted something in frustration.

She closed the file she was working on, reached her hand to touch the tips of her fingers to the sleeve of his jacket. It was made of synthleather, in that brown that brought out the color of his eyes and she was so tired herself, she couldn’t help but indulge in ogling him a little, even if he – like her – looked like shit.

“I know how hard this is for you,” she said softly, because if Cassian had felt remorse before about what the cause of freedom had demanded he do, there was no telling on how guilty he felt that someone else was out there doing it instead.

The fact that most of these sentients were Bothan Spynet rather than Alliance Intelligence didn’t make him feel any different, as far as she could tell.

He didn’t answer, seemingly content to squeeze her fingers for a few seconds and just stare off into space. Thankfully, it wasn’t what she called his “bad stare”; this was born out of exhaustion, pure and simple, and she reached her leg out under the table to run her boot against his fatigues in a comforting motion.

She focused on work for a few minutes and then noticed that he had fallen asleep on the table. Jyn reached out with her foot again, nudged his good leg. He started, lifted his head and looked at her with his eyes a bit out of focus, words she could only understand the gist of slipping from his mouth. She bit down a smile, because by now she understood how Cassian’s brain was wired in basically two languages. He could speak a couple more fluently and cheat his away through another half dozen, but Festian and Basic were like two different parts of his brain and when he was really, really tired, Basic started shutting down first. His accent grew thicker, he made little grammar mistakes, and he was prone to reacting first in Festian. As was the case now.

“Yes, you were sleeping,” she said, replying to what he had said, “go to bed. I’ll be right along.”

He blinked at her, but was by now used to not knowing which language he had spoken in when he was sleepy around her. So he swallowed, shook his head.

“I’m only on a break, actually.”

“Cassian, for kriff’s sake. You can hardly hold your head up.”

“I know,” he groaned into his elbow again.

She reached out and pushed his hair back, away from his tired, tired eyes, and sighed.

He in turn, took her hand in his, kissed it, and made those eyes at her, those earnest eyes that made him actually look his age (well, when he wasn’t as wrecked as he was right at that moment).

“This is actually stretching my back.”

“Cassian.”

“Wake me up in fifteen minutes.”

She stared at him. Hard.

“Jyn. Please.”

“Fine,” she replied, “but you’re going to physio as soon as you’re free.”

He actually moved like he could make himself comfortable in the position he was sat in.

“Thanks,” he mumbled into his sleeve.

Jyn just sighed and went back to her charts, one of her hands playing with Cassian’s hair.


	3. Chapter 3

VII

He could predict the fury. Yes, that was entirely predictable, because it was Jyn and even if she didn’t show it outwardly, she burned and burned fast and there was nothing he could do to stop it. What Cassian hadn’t really anticipated were the tears, hot and thick, the shaking and the choking on air as she soundlessly sobbed.

Soundlessly, he presumed, because habits were hard to break, after all.

And seeing her like this made his own eyes water, because he had walked into their quarters knowing that he would inflict her pain. He also knew, however, that he had months and months of knowing that this was probably going to be the outcome of the Bothan Intel they had been receiving and therefore could prepare for the blow. She, on the other hand, had been busy helping find Solo, busy with supply runs and the occasional Pathfinder raid in order to blow something up that meant they could fight another day.

Jyn was naturally suspicious and when he started showing up dead on his feet before bed or to meet her in the mess hall, she certainly knew he had been working on something big. Perhaps she was like this, all sharp teeth and furiously clawing through grief because she hadn’t wanted to believe that there could be a second Death Star.

Well, there was.

And Cassian was left helpless, holding on as Jyn fell apart, consumed with anger, guilt, and who knew what else.

Not even after her worse nightmares, not even seeing half her team blown up in an ambush had she reacted like this. It scared him, of course, and he tried his best not to show it, because right now she needed him. And then it hit him, why it was that she was letting it all out like this.

She knew she could, with him.

He propped her against his arm as she violently shook and rubbed her own eyes frantically, and with his free hand, he pinched the bridge of his nose, because his eyes started prickling and he felt something lodged in his throat. He shushed her, like he supposed people did a child and it was some minutes before she calmed down, eyes empty and nose red.

“Do you want anything?” he asked softly.

“Water,” she croaked.

He gently eased her off his shoulder, left her sitting up against the wall in their bunk and went into the ‘fresher for the water dispenser next to the mirror. As he filled one of their canteens (he had a feeling a glass wasn’t going to be enough), he looked at himself in the mirror. Working on this had taken a toll on him – his eyes were red and his cheeks hollow – and made him forget little things like getting a haircut. It was hanging over his ears, some of it curling along his cheek in a way he hadn’t let it since he was sixteen at least. Working from Home One had meant he didn’t have to care about aesthetics, even as he cared about every other aspect of being cooped up there instead of in the field.

Cassian shook his head, glared once more at his reflection, and shut down the small faucet.

Jyn was breathing a little bit easier, the hair whisps that fell from her braid swept from her face, cheeks and lips pale under the dim lights.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she took the canteen from his hands and gulped it.

“Don’t apologize,” he said, fingers unable to keep from touching her, even if lightly.

“I don’t know-“

“You don’t need to explain anything,” he said, wondering if she realized what her outburst meant, “it’s fine. I- I had more time.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“What for?”

“You couldn’t tell me. It must have been difficult, knowing and not being able to talk about it. I understand why Draven would ask you to, though, of course.”

What? He shook his head.

“Jyn, I couldn’t tell you because we didn’t have any confirmation. I didn’t want to believe, honestly, until absolutely sure, and I didn’t want to burden you with what was only a possibility.”

She nodded, wide-eyed, teeth worrying her lower lip.

Cassian didn’t know how, but they had ended up lying down, Jyn’s empty canteen thrown on the ground next to the bunk. He ran his hand over the sleeve of her uniform, pulling her closer to him, kissing her softly on the lips.

“Do you have to go back?” she asked in a small voice.

“Not for another two hours,” he said, “they’re putting together an attack plan. You’ll probably be called up to go with the Pathfinders.”

“And you?”

“I’ll be here,” he whispered, “Draven wants me to monitor comm lines.”

She glided closer to him and touched her nose to his neck, inhaling him.

“Let’s just lie down for a little while, then.”

He nodded, kissed her forehead.

“I love you,” he said, before he went and did something stupid, like let her go help destroy another Death Star without saying it.

She squeezed her arms around him, skimmed her teeth over his pulse point.

Cassian let his eyes drop shut.

 

~*~

VIII

Cassian was informed, a day after the Death Star’s destruction, that they had made a jump into hyperspace. It was a good thing he was told. He was up to his neck in transmissions and comm lines, a celebratory glass of wine someone had left for him the day before and that he hadn’t touched at his elbow, just so that he didn’t even notice. When he felt overwhelmed at what had just happened, at what he and the other analysts were intercepting in the Imperial comm lines, he would shove his hand in his pocket and grip the kyber crystal that had been dropped there, along with a kiss on his lips. He would close his eyes and remember Jyn’s rueful eyes as she shipped off.

He had talked to her already, after the battle, a grainy holo message in which she spent half the time cursing and glaring daggers at people who approached her as she was hovered off somewhere.

“It’s my ankle. That ankle. Again,” she had grunted.

That had been Force knew how long ago. He supposed she was on one of the transports, headed to the same rendezvous point or onwards to Chandrila. That was where they were headed, at least if nothing happened.

At last, someone came to relieve him from duty, and he gladly trudged towards his quarters, if not to sleep then to think about the enormity of what they had just achieved. Of what lay ahead.

This wasn’t over.

Along the way, he kept bumping into people. The cruiser was crawling with soldiers, more than had been previously on it in the first place, but he didn’t dwell on it, because who knew what units these were.

When he punched his code into the door to his quarters, however, he was greeted with a vision that made his heart stop even for the tiniest of seconds.

It was the same ankle, all right. Propped on pillows and bandaged up. Jyn looked fine, a little pale, but whole at least, tiny cuts on her forehead, near her temple, and alongside her jaw. And she was sleeping, like some Force-forsaken princess in the stories his abuela would tell him, only wearing their standard issue soft light blue nightclothes. Her mouth was slightly open, which told him she was given something for the pain, though, something almost like snore whispering in the silence of the cabin.

He wanted to wake her up. He wanted to watch her sleep. He wanted to lie down next to her spend the rest of his life like that.

Cassian stuck his hand inside his pocket again and took the crystal out, laying it on the nightstand. Then he forced himself to walk into the ‘fresher and under the sonic because he was certain he stank.

When he came out, he was greeted with the sound of Jyn’s raspy voice in the dark.

“Cassian. Come here.”

He was still only in a towel but he obeyed and sat down on the bed, careful not to jostle her. He didn’t know what to say. She apparently didn’t either, her green eyes like a calm sea in the dim light.

She reached out a hand, traced his collarbone, gently over where it had snapped broken once and mended poorly; one of the many marks this war had left on his body, the least of them. He touched her bandaged ankle.

“What happened?”

“The stupidest thing,” she wet her lips, swallowed, because she sounded like her mouth was full of cotton, “I’ll admit not the stupidest one in this battle. But yeah, I was shot at while trying to steal a speeder. Lost my balance. I’m going to need surgery this time. They’re going to do a tendon graft or something.”

He leaned over her and kissed her chapped lips. He had a million questions on the tip of his tongue; how she was back in the cruiser so soon being one of them, of course. But right now he didn’t want to know, he just wanted to taste her, to feel her warm and alive next to him, under him. She seemed to be of the same mind, because she propped herself on her right elbow and pulled him on top of her. It was awkward. She had to spread her legs so he fit between them while minding her raised leg, but they made it work and soon he was kissing her again, one of his hands cradled over her heart, which was beating, strong and beautiful and alive.

And infuriatingly under a layer of a blankets and sheets and those nightclothes that looked like something out of an elderly home now that he thought about it, all while he was naked on top of her, his towel long ago forgotten.

“Get under here,” she growled, cold fingers skimming over his naked back and like always, he twitched over her and the response she let out was another funny little noise, because of course she could feel him where he was hard against her.

He had to get up again and then scrambled under the sheets, the warmth of the covers and Jyn enveloping him and turning his brain into mush. She turned her face so she could kiss him, open mouthed, wet and lazy, so lazy, teeth scraping his lower lip, tongue sweet against his and her blunt nails on his scalp, he could feel his eyes closing.

“You’re exhausted,” she whispered, sounding a bit nonsensical, “I forgot.”

He snorted, “aren’t you?”

“I’m so doped up I don’t even know what day it is.”

“Neither do I.”

“I don’t care, actually.”

She was sounding far away and he forced his eyes open, only to see that hers were likewise shut.

“We have time,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he replied against her neck, “yes, we do.”

 

~*~

IX

 

Who would have thought that they would have an apartment, in an actual city, on a perfectly acceptable planet? Jyn was always a little incredulous, sometimes when she wasn’t dead on her feet and she caught her own reflection on the transparisteel of the lift that led to their door, Hanna City’s lights shimmering in the distance. 

Today was not such a day. 

Today she just stumbled into it with a sense of ownership. It wasn’t luxurious. It wasn’t even theirs – Force knew how much they forked from the New Republic salaries in rent alone –, but it was home. At least until they relocated the capital, like it had been agreed. 

She dragged herself from the lift to her door, rolling her neck as she palmed the lock for her prints, wiping her greasy hand when it didn’t work on the first try. Once inside, the head of security of the newly reinstated Galactic Senate was met with silence. Well, that was, if one didn’t count the static of a muted Holofilm playing in the living room. On the couch, a Human form was sprawled, face buried under a cushion, bare feet hanging from one of its ends. Were they anyone else, she would have felt tempted to tickle her husband’s feet. Except they weren’t. 

She sat down in the sliver of space there was and heard a grumbling noise she couldn’t help but smile at.

“Make room for me?” she asked, kicking off her boots and silencing her comlink. 

Cassian didn’t even look at her, just moved sideways and lifted an arm in invitation. She laid on her side, facing him and ran her fingers through his messy hair before burying her nose in the shoulder of the soft light green sweater he was wearing. She immediately drew her face back, a scowl on her face.

“Cassian, that’s vomit.”

“Yes,” came the muffled reply, as he squeezed her in his arm, “please, keep your voice down.”

“That bad, huh?” she chuckled. 

He just grunted a reply and Jyn instead buried her face in the hollow of his throat, where the smell wasn’t as… pungent. 

She must have drifted off quite immediately, because when she woke up, Cassian had turned on the couch and was cradling her on his chest, fingers playing with the ends of her hair. 

“One of those days, huh?”

Mimicking his responses to her earlier queries, she kept her reply to a short grunt. 

“Kes and Shara are planetside. They want to have dinner,” he said, fingers trailing down her arm in a way they had no business to, not when she felt like she had been run over by a rancor. 

“Okay,” she hummed, fitting herself to him. 

She smelled of infinite drills and of the transport over, he was stinking of vomit, but still she propped herself up and kissed him, hungry for him. Hungry for home. 

And he had barely slipped his tongue inside her mouth and a hand onto her bare skin when they heard a very distinctive wail from down the corridor. 

“You go or I go?” he asked, lips still against hers. 

“Let me,” she said, picking herself up, “you look like you’ve had enough.”

“Whoever let him think it was acceptable that he start crawling is just full of banthashit,” Cassian muttered darkly, but it had a fond edge to it that curled around her heart. 

Jyn got up and went to greet their little son.


End file.
